Whipe out Israel!

[scrapinpeg]

Ever read "A Peace To End All Peace," by David Fromkin? Excellent discussion of the aftermath of the end of the Ottoman Empire, and should be required reading for anyone trying to come up with solutions to the problems caused by the first round of solutions.

[Inquartata]

You really should have written that post in Islambic pentameter.

[introspective]

Well, I guess you think we all just won something big because they executed Mr. Hussain. I think the whole thing is sad.

I just think it was terrible, no one wants to see a man hang. I know what he did and so does everyone else but I don't like the idea of someone going to the gallows. Ragging on Islam right now does not help those people mend fences over there. Right now, those two groups are struggling to find a way to get along and America is also trying to help them to get along.

I realize that many people have, over the years, decried the life of Jesus, calling it a myth. Even some Buddhists have made the same claim. But I have a completely different idea. I think both people existed and have had a tremendous impact on the world. They're just too high profile not to have existed. And, much can be credited to their lives. According to Buddhists a Buddha was predicted to appear in the 5th 500 year period after the passsing of Shakyamuni. This does not negate the lives of Jesus or Mohammed, as they were, to me, links between the various schools. But if you really want world peace and the ability to work and fence with people from all over the world, then try a little bit to find something to admire in a person. Their hair, or their outfits, something must be there for you to admire?

[jeff]

Weren't some people bemoaning the absence of RL from the forum? I think they may have second thoughts now...

[Slim]

And if you think that there are seven virgins waiting for you after you blow yourself up into pieces of garbage then you better believe it you're ISLAMB!!!

It's actually 27. What kind of moron would do that for only 7?

[Inquartata]

no one wants to see a man hang. I know what he did and so does everyone else but I don't like the idea of someone going to the gallows.

I agree. I would much rather have seen him mustard-gassed to death. There's no reason why justice cannot be poetic.

[Have At You]

I agree. I would much rather have seen him mustard-gassed to death. There's no reason why justice cannot be poetic.

On the contrary, just as it was important to give him every procedural benefit he denied his countrymen, it was important for their justice system to give him the humane incarceration and execution he never would have carried out.

There's a difference between just governments and tyrants, and "an eye for an eye" would not have demonstrated that difference at all. No matter how horrible a criminal's acts are, a civilized society will not retaliate with equally horrible acts in return. (This, I think, is what underlies much intelligent opposition to the death penalty. Though it is not the reason why I oppose it.)

[Inquartata]

On the contrary, just as it was important to give him every procedural benefit he denied his countrymen, it was important for their justice system to give him the humane incarceration and execution he never would have carried out.

That's why his executioners all wore black ski masks and taunted him during the process, I suppose...

[jBirch]

First of all Islam is not pronouced Islam like as in salami or Or Tommy but Islamb like as in lambchops or Christmas ham.

Actually, it's more like Isss-LOM. As in "is" and "Lombardi".

James.

[scrapinpeg]

That's why his executioners all wore black ski masks and taunted him during the process, I suppose...

From what I read, the taunting came from onlookers. But still. They certainly have some growing up to do, as a country.

And the authorities showed such poor judgment in providing an opportunity for the petty taunting to take place. Saddam came off looking like the only dignified one in the room. Yes, the execution should have been public, and yes a full video record of it should have been made available to the Arab community -- conspiracy theory is such a cultural way of life there, it's hard to see how else to limit the danger of belief that he's still around -- but it should have been done in a dignified and official manner. This was so sloppy.

[Inquartata]

There are still people claiming that they either rigged a fake execution ( what WAS that thing they put around his neck under the noose? ) or executed one of his many doubles, and that he's on his way either to an American secret prison or exile in a paid-off haven right now. Doubtless bunking next door to Elvis.

[jeff]

exile in a paid-off haven right now. Doubtless bunking next door to Elvis.

... in the carbon monoxide suite at the Key West Doubletree - problem solved!

[scrapinpeg]

An op-ed writer in today's paper makes some of the same points, though the article itself is not exactly on topic.

...

The visible end to a murderous dictator has one benefit: It quells theories that he escaped the reaper. Hitler's suicide was not photographed, allowing a belief in his survival to thrive for years. Behind bars and headed for the gallows, Saddam exercised a similar irrational grip of fear over his captors. Philip Shishkin reported Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was so worried last Friday that the Americans might spare Saddam's life at the last minute that he left his only son's wedding early to oversee the hanging.

But in everything from the partisan chants of Shiite bystanders to the grainy, low-lighted jumpiness of the footage and the horror-movie ski masks of the executioners, the video images of the execution contradict the fragile message that a secure and democratic government is in charge, rendering justice to someone who deserves to die.

The intention of the U.S. in putting Saddam in the dock for crimes against humanity was to demonstrate the rule of law, a process he never followed while in power. The trials of Nazi and Japanese war criminals after World War II were a model, along with the more recent (and much slower) prosecutions for genocide of Serbs, Croats and Rwandans at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Damning testimony about Saddam's treatment of the Kurds went unheard, but witnesses before the Iraqi judges--his trial began in October 2005--offered enough evidence to prove his direct role in ordering hundreds of deaths, a fraction of the hundreds of thousands he reportedly ordered over his 23-year reign.

In less than three minutes, the video undid that deliberate process. Saddam will now be frozen in time looking like a tested leader--angry but resigned to his fate--while the Iraqi government is seen hurrying to complete its nasty business before the new year. Even though that government granted him the kind of dignity he seldom granted the people he killed, his uncovered and unbowed head contrasts favorably with the masked executioners shouting "Muktada" and acting up for the camera as if this were a soccer match. Ironically, it is Saddam's stoic behavior on the scaffold that makes his hanging bearable to watch.

The executions on the gallows of 10 Nazi leaders at Nuremberg prison in 1946 and of seven Japanese at Sugamo prison in Tokyo in 1949 had a sense of momentous gravity. The events were well planned, slow, even ceremonial. Reporters were present. But published photographs record the men after death, as prone corpses, the nooses still around their necks after their hoods were removed (the face of a condemned man by hanging is often shielded from public view). It was no media spectacle.

The video by no means assures the martyrdom of Saddam, even among Sunnis. But stately behavior by other executed despots--Charles I, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Nicholas and Alexandra--has enhanced their legacy in the afterlife.

...